Thursday, September 10, 2009

"My Friend Lucy Who Smells Like Corn" Option C

Tepeyac is largely about memory. How does the narrator feel about the memories she is reliving? What words or phrases give you a sense of the narrator's feelings? 

11 comments:

MaiteCaballero said...

When the story begins the author describes her memory of Tepeyac from when she was young. The scene seems comfortable and loved, everyone knows each other, but yet its not boring, you find delights in torillas, blue-specked spoon, and wooden ponies and balloon men. Then the course of the story changes, and she begins describing coming back to Tepeyac after moving away, and compares both her memories and what she is seeing now. She recognizes some things, but others have completely changed.

I chose to respond to this post in particular because i feel as thought i can relate to the author in a couple of ways. I have my own memories from my life in Mexico when i was a small child, i remember thinking that it was the loveliest place in the world, that i loved it, and that i could not feel safer anywhere else. I remember taking my grandmothers hand and walking through the streets and greeting her neighbors. Now when i return after the long years, the setting is similar, but i have grown older. I see the cracks in the pavement, and the worn faces of workers who use to whistle and laugh. I see the corruption, poverty, and issues that Mexico is so abundant in. It saddens me that i cannot change this, and fight for the land that i love. But yet i know that i love Mexico even with all its imperfections, and my homeland has shaped me to be the person i am today.

Every time i return i notice small changes, but they seem so prominent to me. Where is the stray dog that used to come begging me for food everyday? What happened to so-and-so? Since when did this happen? People have moved on and accepted this but i still find myself roaming the streets searching for glimpses of my childhood.

Louisa said...

I think the narrator misses Tepeyac and her Abuelito and the safeness and routine of Tepeyac, like how her Abuelito and her always count the steps going up to their house. I think it is sad for her to come back and realize that she doesn't know and recognize everyone and everything anymore. I think she used to feel totally at home in Tepayac and came back expecting it to be the same and for everyone she knew to be there and she gets back and everyone has grownup and moved away or died.When she says "the house fronts scuffed and the gardens frayed, the children who played kickball all grown and moved away" it shows that Tepayac looks different in her eyes now then it did when she was younger she notices more things and she realizes that this is not the perfect place it was when she was younger. I think that the narrator is sad about these memories but does not regret her time spent in Tepeyac.

KJ said...

In the beginning of the story the child feels excited to go to her grandmothers, But as the child goes up the steps time fast forwards and she is siting in a modern suburb. the child feels out of place because she is expecting to see people playing kickball, but instead she sees cars.
In the story i think the author is trying to explain to readers how it was when she was younger.I think think the author fells nostalgic and I agree with Louisa, misses her grandmother.
The story is a very powerful, it showed the changing of a community.

KJ said...
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bartstile15 said...

i feel that she talks about the good memories of tepeyac. i also feel that at the beginning of the chapter she seems bored or tied or like she isn't having fun. She describes the scene at her house and she says that there are some different things since she moved away. Things have changed, and i feel she is longing to be able to live in the past.

ari123 said...

Tepeyac is about Sandra Cisneros' memories. When the book starts you would never think that this story is a memoir. You just think it is someone relating a tale from the present time, but in actuality that is what she wants you to think. These stories are meant to make you feel the same way that immigrants feel when they come to America. Tepeyac is meant to confuse you. It is meant to make you feel the sense of dislocation that immigrants often feel. Only at the end do you realize that this is her memoir and that this is not taking place at the moment. At the end of the story, she comes back to Mexico and has nostalgia about the place that once was her home.

The flow of the story makes it seem as if these things are shown as they happen, but in actuality this is just her striving to “find” faint memories from her childhood and bring them back to life. She writes with confidence like she is trying to make you feel like you should know these things, like you should be ready to jump into a story about childhood in Mexico.

Also she writes using a long sentence structure. She uses this form of writing because this is the way memories come, in long drawn out strands. Most people think that memories come back bit by bit but actually in her case (and a lot of cases) memories come back in long random strands.

ari123 said...
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Quitze said...

The author describes her childhood memory of Tepeyac. When she was young, she knew the city like the back of her hand. She remembers a lot of joy and liveliness which seemed to be very warm and happy memories for her because of the amount of detail she puts into it. One example is that she remembers the exact candy that she got – milk and raisin gelatins. She also had very good memories of her grandfather who she loved very much (describing Abuelito’s hand as “fat and dimpled in the center like a valentine”). Then all of a sudden, she moves away to America for many years. When she comes back to Tepeyac, the place is so different from how she remembers it. She has to adapt to the new surroundings all at once, whereas the ones who stayed adapted little by little. One example of the change of memory is that she says that her home was “smaller and darker than when we lived there”. Not only does the city change, but her grandfather forgot about her. Though it was tough discovering that Tepeyac was so different, she realizes over time that because she went away, she has the best memory of the place as it was back then and that she will remember it when everyone else forgets. This makes her feel quite responsible for guarding those memories. It’s like a file. If you put the file away in a folder, it stays there perfectly preserved. You may forget that you put it there, but when you find it, it stays unstained and clean.

Summer said...

The way that the narrator feels about her memories is she seems like she misses abuelito. She seems like she was very used to the routine of life in Tepeyac. Then when she compares before to moved away to when she comes back, everything’s different. All the people have moved away or are dead. When she starts describing all the changes (the house number 12 being sold, the tlapalerîa changing owners, the scrolls is taken off its hinges and replaced with a metal door) its showing that she realizes that things have changed and I think it's sad that she goes back thinking everything will be the same but when she get's there she's disappointed to see that its not.

Kelsey Barbosa said...

The narrator's feeling is very sad but relieving tim in her life. She's sad because she's an older person now then when she was a little girl and that she can never relive her greatest moments with her grandfather. She's starts having these flash backs because she wants to relive the moment that she had with her grandfather, and the good times in her life. She feels very empty knowing that her grandfather isn't alive, and that he never got to understand her feelings for him. She felt as if he treated her like the rest of the grandchildren, but for her she wanted to be different then the rest. The narrator isn't completely sad though, she is relieved knowing that maybe he is in a better environment then the one he lived in.

Vaughn said...

I think that the narrator not only misses Tepayec, but she also wants to tell how rich the land is. It seems that she actually list all of her favorite moments and every little detail that she can remember, like when she was saying tha Luz Maria and herself had walked pass the house of the widow that had lost her husband due to a tumor. I personally thing that one of the moments that proves that she misses Tepeyac is when she returns and notices that mostly everything has changed.
No more kids playing kickball and her house has been rented. It's like all of the energy has died.